


New Strain

by talefeathers



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Relationship Study, Scarecrow's Fear Toxin (DCU)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:00:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23462086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talefeathers/pseuds/talefeathers
Summary: Bruce has been hit with a new strain of fear toxin, which means it's up to Dick to talk him down.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 4
Kudos: 93
Collections: Bat Hugs, Batfam/DC Universe, Dick & Bruce, Tumblr Drabbles, everybody loves dick





	New Strain

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "Things you said when you were scared."

For a moment, Dick simply stood there, dazed. The Scarecrow was gone. Not ideal—ideally they would have captured him and handed him over to the police—but he was gone, as were his goons, and Robin was still standing. He’d fended them off.

On his own.

He turned, finally, to look for Bruce, and found him crouched against a crate farther back in the alleyway. Dick made to run toward him, but something in Bruce’s posture made him reconsider. He opted, instead, for a slower approach. A more cautious one.

“Batman?”

Dick could see his jaw working beneath his cowl, could see how tightly coiled he was under the cape. In the two years they’d been working together, Dick had never seen him look so cornered, so caged.

So scared.

“Get… away from me,” Bruce ground out, clearly making an effort to keep Batman’s grumbling voice level.

“It’s—it’s okay,” Dick said, raising his hands, palms facing out. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s just me. It’s Robin. I’m not gonna—”

Bruce flinched away from him as Dick took another tentative step forward.

“You need… to get _away_ ,” he insisted.

“You got hit with Scarecrow’s gas,” Dick explained, as gently as he could. “It must be a new strain, one you’re not inoculated against. But if we can just make it to the car—”

_“I don’t want to hurt you!”_

Dick stopped short.

“What?”

“I don’t know how much longer I can hold it, I’m—whatever Scarecrow did to me, he’s. He’s stripped something away. Whatever was holding me back. And underneath it, Robin, I’m just—I’m just a monster in a mask. I’m no better, do you hear me? I’m no better than any of them, I’m—!”

“No, no, no, Bruce.” Dick crouched down beside him, and when Bruce tried to flinch away again he put his hands on his shoulders, forced him to meet his eyes. “Hey.”

Bruce was trembling beneath his fingers, and suddenly Dick felt like he’d stepped off of a shelf in the ocean and been swallowed all at once by the waves. It felt perverse to be the one whispering away the nightmares and not the one shuddering in their grasp, a sickening role reversal he’d never thought possible. But Bruce needed his help, so he pulled his head above the churning water as best he could.

“Scarecrow’s whole thing is fear,” he said. “Right? It’s just fear, that’s all this is. It’s a little less literal than it usually is, I guess, but it’s still just fear. There’s no truth in it.” He tightened his hands on Bruce’s shoulders. “You’re not gonna hurt anyone. You’re not a monster, Bruce.”

Bruce took a few shallow breaths, and for a moment Dick wasn’t sure what was going to happen.

Then, with a crushing desperation, Bruce was hugging him.

Dick knew, even as he hugged his mentor back as tightly as he could, that they were never going to talk about this. They would proceed from this moment as if it had never happened.

Still, Dick thought. As long as he knows.

“I’m here,” he said into Bruce’s shoulder. “I’ve gotcha.”


End file.
